hi everyone from the woods of Michigan's u.p. , this makes 32 winters on our Ashley side loader. we cut ,split and burn 10 pulp cord a season. also have a ready to use wood cook range, real beauty. something i didn't see mentioned was winter clothing. official ( yooper) winterware, carhearts or snowmobile suit with mickey mouse boots. buy for you and the kids. this is essential survival gear, you can live in your suit even without any heat. Ive been out all day in tree popping, eye watering, instant frozen nose hair, -35 below and stay toasty warm. kerosene will keep indefinitely. i have a few 55 gal. drums of k-1 clear stored since 1998 to be used for lighting only when t.s.h.t.f. the wood heat is free for the cutting. bye and stay warm , eh.

Kerosene - you can use for heat,light, and cooking. By being patient, I have bought a larger convection heater (23,000 BTU) and a small radiant heater (7000 BTU) and new wicks for less than $100. I've got these cleaned up and ready to go. I have two new, in the box, "old stock" Aladdin lamps and extra mantles that I bought off of E-bay for less than 1/2 price new. And I picked up a few "hurricane lamps" at garage sales for a few bucks. The only "trick" to kerosene is that you don't want to buy the fuel and have it go bad. I have a few 5 gallon containers ready to be filled and have identifed a couple of different sources. I buy a couple of gallons of synthetic kerosene (Kleen-Heat) whenever it is being sold cheap because it will last a very long time. Plus I have the Coleman "white gas" camping stoves and lamps that you can pick up for $5 at garage sales.

You can get the propane cylinders at Walmart. Get the
Ozark Trail brand. There cheaper than coleman and are just as good. I cleaned out one of the cabinets under a bathroom sink. I have about 50 lined up in there. You can also get the 20 cylinders. You will need 2 adaptor hoses to make it work.

soot? How often do you have to clean stove pipe? Could it catch on fire...like chimney fire? I have to ask...as it sounds good, but I have zero knowledge of coal burning.

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also... on the first ...second? post up there with the alcohol burning heater/paint can? If you used it in a small room, and needed to crack a window for ventilation...you need to do that right? well it's well below zero a lot...would it even give off enough heat? with a window cracked?

anthracite coal ( hard coal ) not the same stuff used in power plants burns very clean with no soot, and no smoke especially compared to wood.

anharra, I can't answer your soot question except to say that if you do not clean the soot from the pipes periodically (depends on how much use it gets) you could have a MAJOR pile of black sticky oily dust all over the room your stove pipe is in - if not thru the rest of the house. Hard woods tend to burn cleaner/hotter so the flu build-up will be slower - NEVER burn pine in your fireplace. Yes it's cheap and easliy available but the sap will build up on your chimney liner and can lead to a flu fire

You NEED to open a window (even just a crack - not wide open) when you have a fuel source burning in your home or garage. Even my little ceramic heater recommends ventilation of the room. Keeps the carbon monoxide levels at bay and fresh oxygen coming in (for the heating unit to burn properly and more importantly for you to breathe). I would also remind everyone to get a Carbon Monoxide detector for their home.

Keep a fire extiguisher, water (not for electrical sources) or a box/bag of baking soda close by your fire/heat source. You can't go running to the garage to dig it out in a time of need. If it's not close by- simply get out and call 911. Even if it's close by and you use it, call 911 and have the trained firefighters check to be sure there is no fire spreading elsewhere behind your walls.

"We do not know the true value of moments until they have undergone the test of memory." unknown author

soot? How often do you have to clean stove pipe? Could it catch on fire...like chimney fire? I have to ask...as it sounds good, but I have zero knowledge of coal burning.

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also... on the first ...second? post up there with the alcohol burning heater/paint can? If you used it in a small room, and needed to crack a window for ventilation...you need to do that right? well it's well below zero a lot...would it even give off enough heat? with a window cracked?

I just bought a small old cast iron coal cook stove for $65 and refinished it. High quality clean burning coal is very cheap and can be bought and stored in 50 lb bags. It burns much cleaner than wood, doesn't absorb water like wood and burns all day long. I have used it in the backyard to try it out and am convinced , for me, that is the way to go. Seems so much easier than wood.

c bass'n - I will tell you what we use. We have a 2000 sq ft house on one floor. Our wood stove is in our living room and that room has a 14 foot ceiling. When we are home, we use our wood stove for our primary heat. We usually keep our thermostats set on 60 and when burning in the wood stove our boiler doesn't come on. We live in the Northeast and our winters are cold and snowy. We usually go through about 4 cords of wood a winter. Remember, that is part time use. To heat totally with wood, it would take us at least twice that amount. Of course, we could stretch it out by blocking off part of the house. Don't know what size your house is and how cold it gets where you are at, so the question is kind of hard to answer. Also it depends on what kind of wood you get. Different kinds produce different BTU's. We are lucky enough to live in the woods and most of our trees are hardwood's - Oak and maple etc.

O.K. Could someone please tell me how many Logs you use in 1Day in your fireplace, or your cook stove for heating and cooking. I don't have alot of room to store 4 cords of wood. Just trying to get a good guess of what I really need in amount of wood logs. Thanks

My wood burning fireplace was converted to natural gas, next week having nat. gas taken out.,coverted back to wood burning. And a chimmey stack put in for wood burning cook stove. Thanks

I wanted my fireplace cleaned, well bad news for us, It was put in wrong, they took out all the firebrick, then they had a home made woodburner. I was glad to find that out early. Now need over 500 dollars to replace it. So please dont wait call to have your fireplace or wood burner cleaned and check out now.

excellent point,,we just had ours done too and found out the bricks on top were crumbling,,etc,,(they took a polaroid up there and brought it back down to us to see) our house is 40 plus years old so things do age from time to time. but importantly,,,we need to spend 1800.00 bucks for a new pan and restoration. i am just glad we found out about it too before heavy usage occurs in our fireplace!

Thanks for the info, Chloe! I was looking at the Coleman heaters, perhaps the one that is skinny and upright, or the one that looks like a big light bulb that sits at an angle.

So yours at 3000 BTUs kept one room bearable? What temp do you think it was in your room? I would consider temps in the 50s to be bearable, and the 40s to be survivable. We usually keep our thermostat set at 62 during the night in the winter.

If one canister lasts just 6-8 hours, and if there is a long power outage, that means you'd have to have many canisters stocked away! Is that doable?

Where do you buy the canisters? I haven't found them online.

Are there other viable strategies for heating without a fireplace?

I've also considered getting a solar generator system with enough power to run an electric space heater, but it would be quite expensive.

I have a coleman portable catalytic heater that is rated for indoor use and it is 3000 btu's. I used it during an icestorm when the power was out and it only put out enough heat to keep one average size (closed off) room bearable. One canister of propane lasts 6-8 hours.

We use a pellet stove. If we loose power during the winter we can't run it.

Is there anything we can do to heat the house? Is there a way to convert it somehow, still using the pellets? Or a way to battery operate the fan system? We won't care that it isn't using the thermastate, we can control that ourselves by starting and stopping it. I figure by that point, we will drape off and only heat the livng room, kitchen area, and sleep in the lr.

any ideas?

Edited later - I just found another thread that said you can run the fan system off a car battery for about 18 hours give or take.

My word - first I will be syphoning my car for gas for the generator, then stealing my own battery when that runs out...what then? lol

I wanted my fireplace cleaned, well bad news for us, It was put in wrong, they took out all the firebrick, then they had a home made woodburner. I was glad to find that out early. Now need over 500 dollars to replace it. So please dont wait call to have your fireplace or wood burner cleaned and check out now.

hi and thanks for posting, I checked the site,the problem with making this for my home is my windows slide from right to left, not up and down. but this would also be good for some one making a green house, they could add this to their plans roxy

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